Víctor Paz Estenssoro, 93, 4-Time Bolivia Leader, Dies

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Published: June 9, 2001

BUENOS AIRES, June 8—
Víctor Paz Estenssoro, who was president of Bolivia four times in a career that he began as a moderate leftist and ended as a conservative, and who went into exile three times, died on Thursday. He was 93.

News service reports said Mr. Paz Estenssoro died where he was born, in Tarija, of complications from the amputation of his right leg because of circulatory problems.

Mr. Paz Estenssoro is best remembered for being a leader of a revolution in 1952, the defining political event in modern Bolivian history. He decreed a thorough land redistribution, nationalization of the mining industry and universal suffrage, including the Indian majority. Radical labor unions have been major figures in Bolivian politics since then.

Mr. Paz Estenssoro was born on Oct. 2, 1907, into a family of landowners in the southern wine region. He traveled to La Paz, the capital, planning to study law. But he specialized in economics and spent much of career as an economics adviser and professor.

In 1942, he helped found the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, at first a motley coalition of radical urban professionals and military rightists, that remains an important center-left party.

He won a presidential election in 1951. But Congress handed over power to a military junta. After brief fighting in 1952 in La Paz and other cities, Mr. Paz Estenssoro returned from exile in Argentina and was sworn in as president. He, in turn, exiled many of his opponents.

The Eisenhower administration embraced the revolution as an alternative to Communism, and aid from Washington flowed. But hyperinflation eroded Mr. Paz Estenssoro's support among the middle class. In the election of 1956, he was replaced as president by another leader of his party. But he returned to office in 1960, and again in 1964. His third term was cut short after three months by a military coup.

Mr. Paz Estenssoro, who was ambassador to Britain and the Netherlands, was known as a reclusive man with simple tastes. He took part in few public events and left much of the work to his ministers, especially in his final term.

But Mr. Paz Estenssoro, nicknamed the Old Fox, was also known for toughness. One of many popular anecdotes began in an early term, when the leader of a mining union surprised Mr. Paz Estenssoro at a worker protest by stuffing a stick of dynamite in his belt and threatening to light it. ''If you want to die, light it and we'll go together,'' Mr. Paz Estenssoro reportedly said. The miner backed down, and the uprising was over.

Mr. Paz Estenssoro was re-elected for a fourth time, in 1985, at age 77, when Bolivians turned to him at a time of economic and political turmoil made notable by an annual inflation rate of more than 25,000 percent. Mr. Paz Estenssoro then reversed some of the changes of his first presidency, privatizing the mines, cutting government deficits, overhauling tax collection, lifting price supports for food and floating the currency at a single unified rate. The inflation rate plummeted.

He also drew closer to the United States in efforts to halt a growing cocaine industry, but he favored crop substitution and rural development over military efforts

When tin prices collapsed, miners marched on La Paz in 1986, and Mr. Paz Estenssoro responded with authoritarian measures. He declared a state of siege, arrested union leaders and ordered the army to block the march. He was able to complete his term in 1989, the first elected leader to do so in a quarter-century.

Mr. Paz Estenssoro was married twice and had five children.

Photo: Víctor Paz Estenssoro, accompanied by his wife, second from left, on the way to vote in 1985 in La Paz. (Associated Press)